Breaking Through
by Reese Peanut Butter Cup
Summary: Sydney Fox is a world renowned Relic Hunter and a tip from a friend leads her and her nervous assistant, Nigel on a quest that starts out to prove truth to Tolkien’s novels. However, both they and the fellowship get more than they bargained for.


Thanks for checking this out!

For those of you who did recognize the names Sydney and Nigel – yes! This is a cross over between Relic Hunter and Lord of the Rings. I've never seen it done before so I thought I'd give it a shot.

For those of you who **don't** know Relic Hunter and are now considering not reading this because you'll be lost – **please stick with me on this!** I'm writing it so that you don't need to have seen the show to understand the plot. All you need to know is that Sydney is a Relic Hunter and a college professor. Nigel is her assistant that she drags around with her on her hunts. Think Indiana Jones, but female.

This may well be a Mary-Sue, but I'm not quite sure. I mean Sydney is already an existing character, and I'm not too sure what classifies a Mary-Sue. Either way, it's just a warning.

The story is also going to be an 11th walker, but with a twist I hope you'll like. Romance will be involved as well, but you'll just have to stick around to see who it's between.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Lord of the Rings, or from Relic Hunter. I just borrowed some characters, settings and elements to create this little fanfic, which I hope all of you enjoy.

Now, on with the story.

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Chapter 1 – _Just a Story?_

"For the last time, Karen, the answer is no!"

"C'mon Nigel, it couldn't have gone that bad or she wouldn't be calling."

"It did go that bad. No, it went far worse than bad; it went…tremendously, horribly, inconceivably….bad." He paused as Karen looked at him with a blank, yet expecting expression on her face as she held the phone pressed up against her shoulder to keep their conversation mute to the person on the other end. "I. Am. Not. Here." He stated with finality, his English accent giving a regal sense about him.

Karen sighed as he buried his nose into one of the books that piled high all over his desk. She had known Nigel for just over four years now and ever since she had come to work for Sydney Fox she had grown fond of the professor's nervous teaching assistant. He was shy by nature and eager to please which caused a lot of women around him to want to mother him. His knowledge about history was unmatched, except by maybe Sydney herself, and Karen knew that he tended to hide behind his studies to keep from entering territory in which he knew nothing – women for example.

"Nigel" she tried again with a seductive smile on her lips, knowing full well that flirting made him uncomfortable and jumpy, "she just wants to…"

"Laa Laa Laa Laa" He cut her off as he put his hands up to his ears and closed his eyes. "I'm not listening. Laa Laa Laa Laa." Karen rolled her eyes and picked up the phone and proceeded to tell the lady on the other end that she had just missed the Englishman for the third time this week. All the while, Nigel continued his childish antics for a few more moments until he felt it was safe to stop. He smiled and opened his eyes and to his surprise and embarrassment, he found that he and Karen were no longer occupying the office alone. Standing in front of his desk with a bemused expression on her face was Sydney, and she wasn't alone. Beside her stood a tall man, dressed as though he had just come from a long trek in the Amazon Jungle, smirking at him as well.

"Uh..I..there..it's..I.."

"Do we want to know?" Sydney asked as she crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow at her stuttering assistant.

"Probably not, no" Nigel replied with a nervy laugh.

"Loved the singing voice, mate" said the man at Sydney's side with a jolly grin, his accent giving his homeland to be somewhere in Australia if one guessed correctly. "You a professional?"

Nigel laughed, "Only in the shower."

"Nigel, this is Mickey Randal, he's a professor at Macquarie University in Melbourne. Mick's an… old friend of mine. Mick, this is Nigel Bailey, my teaching assistant" Sydney cut in and introduced the two with a pleased smile. The two shook hands in greeting. "And this is Karen, my secretary" Sydney continued, ignoring the foolish grin

Nigel was sending her way. Nigel knew from experience that any time Sydney used the term 'old friend' she meant an ex-beau. He'd encountered quite a few of her 'old friends' on their excursions together, and Sydney never seemed to run out.

Nigel could understand why, of course. Sydney was gorgeous. With mocha skin, long dark hair and eyes to match, she was exotic and mysterious. She was adventurous and strong willed. She couldn't be tamed, and Nigel would have been lying to himself if he said he had never been attracted to her. However, they were colleagues and more importantly, they were friends, so he never thought too much about it.

"So what's brought you to Trinity College?" Nigel asked as Mick turned back to him and Sydney after he finished his obvious flirting routine with Karen. Mick smiled and pulled out a small notebook out of one of his inner pockets.

"This has" Mick answered as he turned to Sydney, allowing her to fill her assistant in on what exactly he had in his possession.

Sydney passed another book, one she took out of her bag, to Nigel. This one he recognized, but it only caused his confusion to grow. "The Lord of the Rings" he read the title aloud and then removed his glasses and looked up at Sydney who was smiling at him. "I don't understand.."

"What if I told you that Mick here has found something that might prove that everything that was written in that novel had truth behind it? That the entire thing was actually non-fiction. That it was real."

Nigel stared back at her dumbfounded. "Real?" he repeated as Sydney and Mick just nodded their heads at him with smiles on their faces. "Syd," he began again, trying to make her see some sense, "it's just a story. An amazing story, but a story none the less."

"Nigel, after everything we've seen these last few years, you can't deny that behind every story there is always some truth behind it" Sydney cut in.

"Well…" Nigel really couldn't say anything to that, and she knew it. Together they had journeyed all over the globe in search of priceless relics that nobody else could find. Whether it was a wine bottle containing the lost crown jewels of France or a sundial which was said to have belonged to Zeus himself, the two friends had seen far more of their share of unexplainable occurrences and magic.

"Have you ever heard of a man named Chester Randal?"

Mick's question pulled Nigel out of his train of thought. He looked up at the taller man as he replied. "No, I can't say I have, I'm afraid."

Mick nodded. He'd been expecting that answer. "I didn't think so. He was my great grandfather. He had been a brilliant philosopher, though most of his work warranted no merit because he was considered to have gone mad as he entered his thirties."

"Well from what I've learned there have been a lot of philosophers that were ridiculed for what they believed in" Karen stated as she joined in on the conversation, sitting next to Nigel on his desk.

"That's true" Mick responded with a smile, "but not many philosophers have claimed that they had been able to find a portal to another world." This statement caused both of Sydney's colleagues to look stunned. Noting this, she gestured for everyone to follow her into her office, as she took the notebook that Mick had been holding a second ago.

"When he turned thirty, Mickey's great grandfather moved his wife and son to England. He wanted to study the way of life in a culture different than his own in Melbourne. He became fascinated with how religion shapes our minds and spent a lot of time working with priests. A few of his articles were even published at first" Sydney explained as she sat down and started to dig through all of the paperwork that littered her desk.

"He became so involved in his work that his marriage to his wife failed. She moved back to Australia with my grandfather after about a year and filed for divorce" Mickey cut in, "that was when it started to go downhill." He looked over at Sydney, but she seemed distracted in her search for something, and so he continued. "He started claiming that he'd found some sort of alternate reality. He started describing this other world, and believed that the answers to all of the world's problems could be found there.

My grandfather said that the last time he and his mother had gone to see him, he was on the verge of loosing the flat he'd been renting. He said he seemed off. He said that he scared them. He'd taken to drawing these sorts of imaginary creatures and he drew them over everything. The walls, the ceilings, the floors, even his own skin."

Nigel frowned as Mick shook his head and stopped speaking. He could tell that this was a painful subject for the man, but his inquisitive nature pressed further. "What happened to him?"

"He lost everything" Mick replied in a cold tone. "He moved to Sarehole, where some priests he had befriended took him in, but his _condition _as it was labelled, only seemed to worsen. He died a year later. The priests brought him to a nearby hospital when they found him in the courtyard. He'd been beaten to a pulp, left to die, by whom, no one knows. All that is known about the attack is that he claimed that the dark monsters had done it."

"The dark monsters?" Nigel wondered what that could have possibly meant. He was also still curious as to what this all had to do with Sydney claiming that "The Lord of the Rings" was a work of non-fiction. His questions were answered as Sydney stood up once again and approached them with the notebook and some papers in her hands.

"A week before Chester died, he sent a letter to his son. Along with this notebook" she began as she handed it to Nigel, who began to skim through it. It was filled with maps and drawings. It also was a diary that spoke of this 'portal' that Mickey was determined to find.

"In his letter, Chester stated that he believed he was in danger. He wrote that he may have opened something that he shouldn't have. He promised his son that he would try to fix it, and instructed him to keep 'the book' safe". As Sydney spoke, everyone fell silent and paid close attention, knowing that she had more to say. She also had a look in her eyes that Nigel recognized. It was a look that meant that she was close to closing in on her objective.

"I don't think that Chester was crazy" Sydney said with finality, causing Mick to smile. "I think that he did find a portal of some sort, and I think that whatever he found within it scared him enough to make him want to seal it. However, I think that when he tried, something went wrong. Perhaps he wasn't able to seal it in time and something got through."

"The dark monsters" Mick said quietly to himself. He had a look of both pain and wonderment on his face as Nigel spoke now.

"Sydney" he began slowly, "let's say that you're right about this, we still have no clue as to where this portal is."

Mickey looked up when he heard this and snatched the notebook out of Nigel's hands and flipped through it until he found the page he sought. He smiled as he met Sydney in the eyes. "He mentions finding the portal in a place he called 'the devil's tunnels'."

"Well what does that mean?" Karen questioned as she scanned the cover of the Tolkien Trilogy that she held in her hands.

"That part confused me too at first" Sydney answered, "but then I remembered something. When Chester died, he'd been living with a group of priests at a church in Birmingham. Now a lot of the churches back then had tunnels built beneath them.."

"The devil's tunnels! Underneath a church! Exactly! Sydney, you're brilliant!" Mick exclaimed as he grabbed hold of her, catching her off guard as he swung her around and around, causing the other two in the room to laugh.

"Thank you" Sydney replied with an uncomfortable laugh. He finally put her down and she shook her heard at him before she spoke again. "I needed more proof than that though.."

"As always" Nigel added with a grin, which she ignored.

"Anyway.." she started once more as she handed her assistant the letter that Chester had sent to his son, "look at the date the letter was written."

He did. "July 14th , 1904"

Sydney nodded and Nigel just frowned. Was that supposed to mean something to him? He assumed it was. Sydney always seemed to think that he could follow her train of though, and most of the time he could. However, for this particular hunt, he was completely lost.

"Yes. Now that had to have been one week before he was killed, right?"

"Right" each of her companions said at once.

"So I did some research on Birmingham Oratory…guess whose name popped up?" She asked, and it was Nigel who answered.

"Chester Randal?"

Sydney rolled her eyes at him. "No. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien."

Mick's eyes seemed to pop at hearing this, and Nigel smiled. "The man himself" he said quietly, causing Sydney to speak.

"I found out that when he was twelve, Tolkien and his sister both became wards to the priests at the Birmingham Oratory. Want to make a guess on the year that was?"

Now Nigel knew that they were on the same page again. If it were possible, his grin became larger. As Sydney's assistant he constantly found himself in situations where she proved to be the stronger of the two of them. She was trained in so many areas of martial arts and hand to hand combat that she was always the one to take care of the 'bad guys' on their hunts. He helped when he could, usually by hitting somebody on the back of the head when they weren't looking. However, a majority of the time he tried to stay out of the way and let Sydney do her thing. Nigel knew that his biggest attribute when it came to relic hunting was the amount of knowledge he was able to store in his mind. He was overjoyed to finally have put the puzzle together.

"1904."

"Coincidence?" Sydney asked.

Nigel shook his head. "It never is. Well, I shall never doubt you again."

Sydney smiled, "thanks, Nigel."

Mick watched the interaction between the two and rose an eyebrow. Sydney said that Nigel was her best friend, but there seemed to be something else between them that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Either way, he was now much more focused on the news that Sydney had broke to them.

"So, what do you think that means, Sydney?" Mick asked as she turned to him.

"Mick if I'm right about this, we could we on our way to finding the portal that your great grandfather gave his life to protect."

Mick frowned. This was what he wanted more than anything, however he needed to be sure that Sydney wasn't getting his hopes up for nothing. "What about Tolkien? The Hobbit wasn't published until 1937. Do you think that Chester told him about it before he died?" So many questions needed answering.

Sydney shook her head. "I don't know yet, but I think that whatever it was that got your Chester killed may well have been the same thing that inspired Tolkien to write his novels."

Mick smiled. That was just what he wanted to hear. "I think you're on to something, Sydney" he said. She nodded in return.

"I think so too" she replied and then turned to her secretary. "Karen, I want you to book three tickets to Birmingham with the airline."

Karen nodded and headed out towards her own desk, and Nigel started to leave as well. Sydney stopped him and asked him where he was going.

"I'm off to the library" he replied. "We're going to need as much information about what Tolkien wrote as possible for this trip…then I'm headed to the video store."

"Why the video store?" Mick asked with curiosity.

"To see what we'll be up against this time."

Sydney laughed as he left and turned her attention back to Mickey once again. "Middle Earth, here we come."

To Be Continued………

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Well there you have it. The journey is about to begin. I hope you enjoyed it. I'd really like to know what you think. Constructive Criticism is welcomed, but please no flames. They serve no purpose and are just meant to hurt feelings. Thank again for reading, see ya'll next time. 


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